Wednesday, November 20, 2013

But Mitt Romney Was Out of Touch...

Taxpayers in Will County, Ill. have offered its public employees a hefty pay raise and are willing to pick up 90 percent of the cost for their health insurance, but that’s not good enough for members of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Local 1028.Its 1,300 members went on strike Monday, decrying a “paltry” offer from the county that would have given workers a 14.5 percent pay hike and have taxpayers pay for the overwhelming majority of their health insurance costs.

Folks, I don't know about you, but I have never gotten a 14.5% raise. Ever. I'm not sure I know anyone that has. I certainly don't know anyone that's gotten a double digit raise in the past five years, either. Well, maybe one of those Wall Street fatcats the OccupySomething crowd is always whining about...

90% of their insurance and a 14.5% pay raise, and that's not good enough for them. I'd love to hear the rationale behind that move. "We deserve a 20% raise! These shovels won't lean themselves!" How do you motivate a strike like that? Do you have chants like: "What do we want?" "Free filet mignon!" "When do we want it?" "At lunch, right after lobster!".

Only in the unionized public sector could you think that a 14.5% raise wasn't good enough...

11 comments:

I got a promotion with a 23% increase once, but never just a raise that was more than about 4%.

One of the supermarket chains in our area made a good offer that even the union leadership endorsed, but it was voted down by the rank and file. They had a mediator come in and he recommended they vote on it again, because it really was a good offer. They finally accepted it. We found out later that the sticking point was the company wanted to move everyone off of the union's retirement fund and onto the company's plan. I wondered if the union's national office might have been going behind the local leaders' backs to get the membership to reject it.

Wow. I haven't gotten a raise in several years (and am facing being let go in January. Yay.), and when I was working in retail, I got to hear (mis)management tell me how they went to bat for me and "were able" to get me a 2% payraise. Which boiled down to being able to afford an extra 20oz MtDew each year. So I feel absolutely no sympathy for these union idiots.

Like David H. we have a local grocery chain whose employees are threatening strike.While the Washington, DC area has the lowest unemployment rate in the US there are still a LOT of un/under employed who will be more than happy to work a cash register and stock shelves. Better re-think that strike Mr. Union Worker.

I worked for the federal government for 32 years in law enforcement. I was in a union for about 6 or 7 of those years when I woke up one morning to find that the president, I think it was Reagan, signed an executive order barring federal LE from being in unions. That was a raise in and of itself because I no longer had to pay union dues.

The biggest raise I got though, was while I was in the union and under the Carter presidency. It was about 7% or a little more. Most times, as I recall, we usually got about a 2 or 3% raise each year and sometimes 4 or 5%. I was more than happy with whatever I received in that regard.

My biggest raises were when I got promoted a couple of times. They were not raises just because everyone was getting an annual raise sort of thing, they were solely due to the promotions.

All throughout, I paid what amounted to at least 40% of my health insurance costs. That was also great since the government paid for the rest of it. Now they want to eliminate it and replace it with Obummercare, I shudder at the thought.

For the last several years of my job, I figured we were overpaid and felt that a 5-10% decrease across the board for us would have been in order for federal special agents (criminal investigators). I was vociferous about it and even recommended it in some official surveys and wrote to my Congresscritters about it at least a couple of times. Most others I worked with thought I was nuts but a few understood my reasoning; I did not want to wind up having the government go broke although a 10%cut in all federal LEOs pay, heck in all federal employees pay above a certain grade level, would not have done much to help out. What we really need is to totally eliminate Medicare, Welfare, the EPA, the Dept. of Education, the Dept. of the Interior, at least half of the federal regulations that hamper private enterprise, pork barrel spending, things like grants for studies of how much pubic hair a Bigfoot has growing out of its arse andso forth.

Well, anyway, the reason I bring all that up is because I have to say, those bastards in any union, who are dissatisfied with an almost 15% raise and with having 90% of their health care paid for by the government are absolutely nothing more than YOM-V's (You Owe Me - Voters). FUCK THEM - FUCK THE LIBERAL MINDED TWITS THAT LET THEM GET AWAY WITH WHT THEY HAVE SO FAR - AND FUCK UNIONS THAT SUCK THE PEOPLE DRY. Unions, as most of them appear to me to be today (and that is nothing but corrupt) should be eliminated and forever banned.

The offer isn't for 14.5% in a fell swoop, it's what they would get total after several years of 2.5% pay increases. Compound interest is like that.

That's somewhat less than I used to get in the private sector, but probably more than Will County can afford, or any place in Illinois, can afford long term. I hope the county board shows a little backbone.

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